Dongchel Shin

I am a fifth-year PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering at MIT, working in the Quantum & Precision Measurements Group with Prof. Vivishek Sudhir. I build optical and optomechanical measurement systems that operate at the quantum limit, from laser-cooled, centimeter-scale torsional oscillators to quantum-enhanced frequency-comb metrology, with the long-term goal of probing macroscopic quantum phenomena and the interface between quantum mechanics and gravity.

My work bridges experiment and theory: I design and build the optical, mechanical, and electronic systems behind these experiments, and use quantum optics, stochastic processes, and estimation theory to understand their fundamental limits. In 2025 I was a research intern at NTT Research PHI Lab, working on quantum-enhanced frequency-comb metrology.

Before MIT, I spent four years at KAIST as a research associate (while fulfilling military service) with Prof. Seung-Woo Kim and Prof. Young-Jin Kim, building frequency-comb-based time/frequency standards and precision measurement systems. I received my B.Eng. from Tokyo Institute of Technology and my M.S. from the University of Tokyo.